Beautiful Prison
by JayRain
Summary: Inspired by the picture "Alistair, Knight Templar" by RottenRaggamuffins on DeviantArt.  Alistair's not the best novice templar, but he anxiously hopes Duncan sees something in him and frees him from a life spent as the Chantry's prisoner.


**Author's Note: This work was inspired by the beautiful picture "Alistair, Knight Templar" by RottenRagamuffins over on DeviantArt. Her image and description inspired me to write this short. Check out the picture; you won't be disappointed!**

_Beautiful Prison_

Alistair peels off the heaviest pieces of his armor, yet he still feels fettered. The room smells of incense; sunlight streams in on the stone floor and candles burn in the gilt chandeliers overhead. A lush red carpet muffles his steps, but he sees none of this; a beautiful prison is still a prison.

His shoulders ache from holding his sword defensively all afternoon. His arm is bruised in spite of his shield. He's skilled, though not as much as his brothers and sisters in the order. And his soul aches with knowing that, just behind the door, his chance at freedom awaits.

He kneels before a small altar and rests his head on it, his arms dangling at his sides. His bare chest heaves from the afternoon's exertions. He stares down at the stone and his prayerful meditations are not so much praying, as begging. _Maker, free me. Maker, let me live. Andraste, have mercy on me._

The irony of these prayers is not lost on him, but he cannot help it; he fears his future in this prison. He knows the reputation he will have as a full-fledged templar, and he knows he does not want it. He has seen the older brothers and their dependence on lyrium, has seen them broken and desperate as they grovel for it. He has lived through silent nights in the barracks, silence he broke with his own screaming. At first he screamed out of anger; then it became a game, to see if it could bring the older brothers running to check on him. When they stopped bothering with his well-being, it became a game of survival he played with himself to save his sanity.

He recalls his words to Duncan, the dark-skinned man with the shrewd eyes that saw beneath the surface, who now holds Alistair's fate in his calloused hands. "If I stay here I will die. Not right away, but slowly. I'm not the strongest or the fastest. I'm completely average, if you hadn't seen it already," he told Duncan, just after placing dead last in the tournament. "But I will fight hard and I will give my all. If only to get out of here."

But Duncan will likely recruit one of the novices who bested Alistair, since it's well known the Grey Wardens only take the best and the brightest. He will leave Alistair, an unwanted bastard son practically raised by dogs, to lead a living death as a Chantry templar.

Alistair rises and paces the small prayer room-turned-prison cell. He looks back on his life with anger, and ahead at his future with fear of what he will become. The Grand Cleric has determined that Alistair will take his final vows as a templar within the next fortnight. And now his fate hangs in the balance, dependent on one man swaying the Grand Cleric's mind: no small task.

_Please_, he begs the Maker. _Please_, he begs Andraste, the Maker's bride. _Do not make me suffer any more. If Duncan cannot free me, let me die here._

His own desperation frightens him.

He leans on the wall, the stone cold on his bare skin. He stares out the small window overlooking the streets of Denerim. Children play in the streets, barefoot, dirty-faced, laughing. Growing up, Alistair loved to laugh, but he learned, quickly and painfully, that laughter was eschewed in favor of prayer. He sees merchants peddling their wares and pretty women peddling their bodies. They make him blush and he wonders how he would survive in the outside world after so many years behind the thick walls of the Chantry. The walls are more than those of the building; they are walls that have been built inside of him that he longs to tear down.

The door creaks on its hinges. He fumbles to get on his rough under tunic and slips into his dented breastplate, though he doesn't have time to buckle it in place. He stands at attention, armor askew, hair spiky with sweat, anxiety making his heart pump acid through his veins. He is more anxious than the time he was dared to lick a lamppost in the winter. This is more painful than when he was sent away from Redcliffe so many years ago. It wasn't an easy life there, but he had his freedom.

The Grand Cleric enters, her silver hair pulled into a severe bun to match her expression. She never looks on Alistair with anything other than disdain. He learned early on he would never be the templar anyone wanted him to be, so he did only what needed to be done to get by. She knows this, and it is just one of the many reasons he suspects she hates him.

Duncan enters behind her, his swarthy face serious and his deep, dark eyes stoic and unreadable. Alistair looks between them, suspended in the strange limbo of hope and fear. He trembles within his armor. Questions threaten to burst from him, but he's learned, the hard way, to speak when spoken to.

"The Warden Commander has invoked the Right of Conscription," the Grand Cleric says at last, the words dripping from her mouth like venom. "It is an ancient Right that supersedes Chantry law. Much as this violates my better judgment, I have no right to deny the Warden Commander's invocation."

Alistair is lost in the maze of her words. "You have been conscripted to join the Grey Wardens," Duncan says. "This is not an invitation; it is an order. This is not your freedom. Your life belongs to the Wardens from this point forward."

Though he leaves one life of servitude to enter another, as he watches the irritation spreading over the Grand Cleric's face Alistair knows it is completely worth it. As he follows Duncan out into the free air of Denerim, it is better to fly into the unknown, than face the slow, lingering death the Chantry offers in this beautiful prison.


End file.
